This is a very good point. One of my best friends had an unrelated issue with a Maple in his yard, and the arborist was amazingly helpful. Now that Old maple is up and running and looks happy.
We’re going to have to call someone like that to look at our tree before the summer is out. One side of it seems to be having problems (curled leaves) while the other side is doing great…
Yeah, not a bad idea. If you get a tree trimmer out the first year and get stuff cleaned up, you may not need a tree trimmer out for a while thereafter. If you’ve got other issues beyond this one particular tree, that might be especially helpful. Also if you’ve got dead branches. It sounds like the previous occupants may have been letting this kind of stuff go for a while, so it may be money well spent.
Virginia creeper can get that big in the wild. The stuff you see on the sides of houses are usually smaller cultivars or boston ivy. Creeper can get really big in the woods.
But yes, it very well could be poison oak,ivy so use gloves or other protection, unless you are a masochist.
I think I see something in the undergrowth…
Yeah I have experience with um … being a dumbass and chopping a huge arm thick poison oak vine on the side of a tree for about a full day before noticing what I was doing. I spent the greater part of the next month getting treated. You do NOT want to mess around with that stuff.
I believe you about the creeper as well. Some of the vines around here get extremely large for all varieties.
The best way to tell will be looking at the leaves, and how it is attached to the tree. If it as little sucker-pads or if it just uses tendrils to cling to the trees.
Jon - what are the signs of poison oak as opposed to other stuff? You mention sucker-pads vs. tendrils - which kind does poison oak use?
Poison oak isn’t a vine. Poison Ivy is the vine.
Poison oak usually is mistaken for young oak trees as they have similar looking leaves. Poison ivy creeps with tendrils (not suckers) so they are not found on walls as much. They look like they have red-brown hair growing off of them to latch onto the bark. Poison Ivy is crazy because it can be a shrub, ground cover (ground vines) or vines hanging from trees. Depending on where they are situated they will take a form.
Poison Ivy and Virginia Creeper are often mistaken for eachother. Big way to tell them apart. Poison Ivy have a leaf with 3 leaflets (small leaves sharing a stem) and Creeper generally has 5 leaflets.
Hope that helps.
Additionally, it could also be Vitis riparia, or the River Grapevine! They usually don’t get that big, but since that tree is old, I could definitely see river grape being a possibility. I would need to see a leaf to be sure. Though, they usually have really shaggy bark on the vines (look like they are falling apart almost) and the vines you are showing look pretty stable.
I give Australia a lot of shit for having the world’s most unpleasant creatures, but I have to admit, poison ivy is pretty nasty. “So , there’s a plant that grows pretty much everywhere. And if you touch it, you can get painful rashes, and maybe blisters. Have fun in the woods kids!”
Oh, I would like to also add, if it is creeper (which I am 90% certain) it could definitely hurt the tree… but not likely. Creeper only uses the tree for support to get to the sky and open air. They don’t feed off of the tree like fungi do. With a tree that large, I doubt the creeper vines are choking out the sunlight.
But, aesthetically the vines look kinda messy, so to get rid of them, you just cut the stem from the roots and it will die slowly and fall down on its own.
Other species can re-grow from the vine, creeper cannot.
This.
And if Bear Grylls have taught us anything it is that you should cut down the thinnest wines and build a raft.
I envy you your tree. I have a fig tree… I think it has four leaves and one fig. Next year it might grow a branch.
And then pee on it.
We actually have a nice patch of forest behind the house. The trees there aren’t quite as old as this one, but my backyard is about 15 yards of lawn, then a 4-foot high wall, then about 30 yards of forest with what looks like ivy covering the ground and a whole bunch of new growth trees and saplings. I’m pretty sure there’s a bunch of poison ivy back there, but the general ivy covering the ground actually looks like something that was planted in a garden and then went wacky.
I didn’t get the pics today. Too much to do. I’ll do it tomorrow.
Well I’m assuming he wants to clear his ground so that he has usable land.
If he can’t pull some of those roots, he’ll at least have to dig and cut off a sizeable portion.
Double post. Move along
Are you attempting to reclaim that 30 yards?
Take off and nuke the site from orb… ++[No carrier]
Neither poision oak nor poison ivy is technically a vine, though they do have vine-like properties. This looks like a true vine, although the leaves DID at first remind me a bit of poison ivy. It’s a bit blurry though.
The shroom is just a shroom (don’t eat it!).